City Landmark – Gole Market, Central Delhi Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - June 30, 2023June 30, 20230 Tomorrow's museum. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Gole Market is gole. Truly round. An octagonal building is the sun in its solar system. This central edifice has a grimy tin roof but is historic — it was a part of Edwin Lutyen’s design for New Delhi. The building is surrounded by a traffic roundabout, which is surrounded by a circle of colonnaded market. Closed about a decade ago, following “structural damage” and legal disputes, the barricaded landmark is to be relaunched into a fresh lease of life. New plans were announced this week by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). It is to become a museum. Just before disappearing into the purdah some years ago, the building looked like
City Hangout – Best Monsoon View, Gurgaon Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - June 29, 20230 Rainy season's purple prose. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Can anyone get tired of seeing the monsoon from the same place again and again, if the view happens to be among the most beautiful in the entire Delhi region? As rains hit the capital, and the monsoon season inches closer, high time to go back to a beloved Gurgaon rain-spot. The panorama is half-made by our city’s builders, and the other half is courtesy of the nature. See photo: here’s how the rainy season looks like each year from our recommended GPS. In the decisive instant this scene was snapped, the otherwise smoggy Gurgawa sky was stained in profound shades, resembling the Normandy sky of an impressionist painter’s canvas. While the vicinity’s
City Landmark – Poets’ Corner, Modern Tea House Landmarks by The Delhi Walla - June 28, 20230 Poetry with chai. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The white lighting at Modern Tea House would illuminate the darkened Walled City alley far beyond the midnight. Inside, the last table would be clouded in tobacco smoke, smelling of beedis and of lukewarm chai. This was the poets’ corner. The singsong recitals of shairyi would be punctuated by interludes of comfortable lulls. All of this stands silenced. The tea house in Gali Haveli Azam Khan shuts by 8. The poet’s’ corner has its old table, but no poetry. During the day, a few of those verse writers might still trickle in, arriving at different times from nearby gallis, kuchas, katras, chattas, ahatas. Occasionally, two or three of them happen to be present simultaneously,
City Hangout – Deer Park, Hauz Khas Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - June 28, 2023June 28, 20230 An iconic park's profound alteration. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] It will soon be a civilisation gone with the wind. The iconic Deer Park in Delhi’s Hauz Khas is set to completely turn around its character. The number of park’s deers have grown to 600, and the authorities have decided to “translocate” them into the jungles of Rajasthan and Delhi. And Deer Park will have no deers. This muggy morning, they are still milling about in their sprawling enclosure, but are difficult to spot. The entire boundary is screened off by green nets. These were put up two weeks back, a gardener informs, complaining that visitors would irritate the animals by tossing food stuff or worse, stones, at them. Even
City Food – Jamun Berries, Around Town Food by The Delhi Walla - June 26, 20230 Year's consolation. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] They are dropping from the tree, hitting the ground—plop! Some of them burst, squirting their purple juice. Some lie whole, waiting for an unsuspecting person to step on them and slip. But no passerby is picking up the berries, despite the fact that jamuns can be so yum. Not even jamun seller Ajay, sitting cross-legged steps away from the tree, here on a pave, in Green Park Market. Ajay’s basket of jamuns are sourced from Azadpur Subzi Mandi, he says, where they had came from Pushkar in Rajasthan. Why doesn’t he get them straight from any of the jamun trees lining the city streets? He silently shrugs. Miles away in Turkman Gate
City Walk – Ghamand Sarai Street, Gurgaon Walks by The Delhi Walla - June 23, 20230 True paradise is the paradise lost. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Some believe a land becomes our own only after its soil grows fertile with our memories. A city too begins to truly belong to us only after our beloved places in it cease to exist. Such disappeared markers (cafés, cinema halls, bargain stores) eventually fade out of Google maps, but never from our private biography. Here is a lane in the megapolis that throbs with similar absences—in this case, of two chai stalls, and of an elderly citizen. The street lies in Gurgaon’s Sadar Bazar, adorned with the old Ghamand Sarai gateway. Memory 1 The most striking aspect of Raja Tea Stall was the silbatta, the grinder to crush the
Mission Delhi – Pinky, Meharchand Market Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - June 23, 20231 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] She is rolling out yet another atta ball, building up a stack of perfectly round garma-garam tawa rotis. Meanwhile her little daughter is glued to the mobile phone screen. Her son is sitting on a chair, feet up. It could be a commonplace scene in any home. And it is, up to a point. Pinky’s roadside establishment is parked towards the penumbra portion of Meharchand Market. Her business is to rustle out “ghar ka khana.” Her 50-rupee homey thali meal comprises of dal, roti, rice, sookhi subzi and a paneer dish. Friendly yet reserved, she is an entrepreneur and a single parent. “I’m alone raising my kids, they are
City Hangout – Yamuna View Point, H. Nizamuddin Bridge Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - June 21, 20230 River in the city. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Stumbling into this distant scenery is like randomly opening an old issue of National Geographic magazine, and finding a breathtakingly panoramic two-page spread on some legendary river. But this is polluted Yamuna in Delhi. From this vantage spot on H. Nizamuddin bridge however, the river, winding through a terrain of trees and greens, is looking quite pristine. Such is the subtle playful trick of the little known Yamuna View Point to upend a citizen’s silted relationship with the river. The baggy wide Delhi is a mishmash of signature scenes: the cliffy rocks of the Aravali ridge, the concrete stalagmites of Gurgaon, the bookstores of Khan Market, the traffic jams of
Mission Delhi – Subhash Yadav, Burari Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - June 20, 20230 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] His three children are go-getters. Abhiraj, in 11th grade, is focusing to become an engineer. Suraj, in 10th grade, is focusing to become an IAS officer. Rakhi, in 9th grade, is focusing to become a doctor. Yet, “sometimes it all looks so difficult,” murmurs Subhash Yadav. “But if my children are really prepared to work hard…,” he trails off. Next moment, he keeps his hand on his heart. “See, I have worked hard.” Subhash started his career in the megapolis two decades ago as an auto rickshaw driver. He initially set his base in Gurgaon for a few years, before moving towards the other extremity of Delhi-NCR,
City Life – Gali Haveli Azam Khan, Old Delhi Hangouts Life by The Delhi Walla - June 19, 20230 Street out of a mansion. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The word is spreading along the galis and kuchas. A new eatery is rustling out unorthodox dishes like “chicken white sauce pasta” and “chicken red sauce pasta.” The modernistic Al-Umar Foods is fitted with metallic cooking panels and sleek white lighting. It opened a week back in Gali Haveli Azam Khan, replacing the old-fashioned Saeed Hair Cutting Saloon, which moved some lanes away to Kucha Mir Hashim. Traditionalists need not fret. For now, most of Azam Khan is staying loyal to its golden era souvenirs. Khalil Bhai’s chai khana teems with hyperlocal poets dissecting chalu Hindi film songs as passionately as they do ghazals and nazms of our immortal poets. Raees